shEver - Ocean of Illusions (2007)

   Even though long ago the members of shEver declared that black metal was their main influence, they've debuted with an excellent death/doom album.
   To combine death and doom metal has a long history, but unfortunately most old bands disappeared or changed style after one or two albums. In the late '00s this style counted as something unexploited partly because of this, and partly because death/doom bands didn't spark wide attention, so plenty of similar projects showed up. The effectiveness of "Ocean of Illusions" lies in the good mixture of simple melodies and heavy sound. The repetitive themes during decent song lenghts with the assistance of a strong background atmosphere and clear female singing gave a deeply sad basic impression. By the screaming/growling vocal style and the heavy sound it turns tragic and desperate, but also gains a very powerful effect. The way how the songs were composed could serve as a good example for perfection inside the borders of this style. The appearence of female musicians in metal genres doesn't count as exceptional anymore, but in the case of full female line-up on the extreme metal field things are getting more interesting. Especially if they create something that gives a different perspective for a genre like shEver did, without experimenting with anything new. "Ocean of Illusions" is probably the best death/doom metal album that was released since the early '90s have passed.